


Sign of the Times

by mischiefmanagedmate



Series: Kincaid Cinematic Universe [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanagedmate/pseuds/mischiefmanagedmate
Summary: There are some things you can't share without ending up bonded for life. Watching a boy die right in front of you is one of them.Sophie Kincaid has a plan. A new plan, that is. It involves getting onto that Prophet journalism scheme, making it through NEWT classes in one piece, and kissing Fred Weasley senseless whenever possible.But Hogwarts has plans of its own. Dolores Umbridge proves a force to be reckoned with. Her best friend, Cho Chang, is struggling - and nothing Sophie, Jem and Anna do seems to make a difference. And maybe she doesn't know her boyfriend as well as she thinks she does.Part Two of Three. Sequel to Something That I Want.
Relationships: Cho Chang/Harry Potter, Fred Weasley/Original Female Character(s), Lee Jordan/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Kincaid Cinematic Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050251
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	1. It's Time To Begin, Isn't It?

‘Magic’ means a lot of different things. When Sophie was little, magic meant fairy-tales and folklore. Magic was when she was scared of the water-spirits that lived in the stream at the bottom of the garden (which she discovered in later life to be a particularly noisy pair of cormorants) and her father would stoke a little fire in her bedroom to keep the evil spirits at bay. And then when Filius Flitwick knocked on the door of Craig Castle, he gave a new meaning to the word ‘magic’, and to the words ‘witch’ and ‘Hogwarts’ and ‘Transfiguration’ (not that she could quite pronounce that last one). Magic ceased to be something abstract and became something she could wield; something that coursed through every vein in her body.

But if the last year had shown Sophie anything, it was that magic, of your wands, broomsticks and Quidditch variety, sometimes created more problems than it solved. In an apple orchard somewhere just outside Devon, Cedric Diggory was laid to rest, killed by the deadliest spell of all. Somewhere in the middle of Dundee, her best friend Cho Chang had spent a miserable few months, trying to figure out what it meant to be the girlfriend of a dead boy. Magic had brought them all together to Hogwarts – Jem, Anna, the twins, Lee – but it was magic that had taken one of them away forever. As Sophie lay with her eyes closed, toes curling in the grass, she tried not to think too much about that sort of magic. The kind of magic her father talked about – salmon leaping in the river, the gentle breeze in the trees – that was the kind of magic she could deal with right now.

“Sophie! Almost tripped over you, you daft thing.”

She’d know that voice anywhere. She sat up, shielded her eyes against the sun with her wrist. “Sorry, Angus!”

The Craig Castle garden, which was really more of a collection of fields, all backing onto one another and all hideously overgrown, was a popular walking spot for tourists and locals alike. Spending all her summers up in the Highlands since she was tiny, Sophie had long since grown used to people tripping over her. And there was no one she enjoyed bumping into her more than Angus.

“What are you doing down there, chick?”  
“Oh, just – sunbathing.” Sophie glanced down quickly at herself – took in the palms of her hands, caked in soil (it would take forever to get out from under her fingernails), the damp patch the dew had left on the back of her shorts. She’d have been better off trying to catch the sun hanging out of the kitchen window. But this was the best place in the whole village to watch for owls as they swooped through the hills. And she was pretty keen to receive today’s letter. Even as she nodded in all the right places as Angus waxed lyrical about all the trout he’d caught on yesterday’s fishing trips, reassured him that the spot on his forehead where he’d caught the sun didn’t look as bad as all that, her mind was wholly elsewhere.

Midway through the same story he’d told for sixteen summers about how his dad first caught him to catch trout (the trick, apparently, was to lie down on your belly on the riverbank; not that Sophie had ever had much success with that), Angus tipped his head right back.

“Would you look at that. Ten o’clock in the morning and they’re out. Now I’ll tell you something about owls –”

“Is that the time?” She sprang to her feet, shuffling into her flip-flops. “I’ve got to run, Angus. I promised Mum I’d help her with – something. At ten. So I’ve got to run.”

She winced – she’d already said that. She’d never been much of a liar. But where a man with even a modicum of suspicion might have squinted after her as she ran up the hill, Angus let her go with little more than an “alright, chick.”

She was a funny one, wee Sophie, he thought to himself as he carried on home. She hadn’t the foggiest about rods or flies or anything of the sort – but whenever he took her fishing, she reeled in dozens of the things. As if by magic.

“Shoes off,” her mother called as Sophie ran full-pelt through the French-windows, tracking in mud from the garden. “I’ve just cleaned that floor. Not everyone gets to solve their problems with the swish of a wand, you know.”

Sophie bit back a retort about how cleaning spells needed more of a jab than a swish, just kicked off her flip-flops and lunged for the owl. They could recognise a few of the more distinctive ones by sight – the one the Liu siblings shared had amber markings round its eyes, and Cho’s owl was a bit of a biter. Michael had taken to wearing his gamekeeping gloves before he even tried to wrestle a letter from that owl. But they’d never yet had a letter come straight from the Ministry. The owl seemed to know it, too, puffed up to its full height, tapping its talons against the windowsill like it didn’t have all day.

Her fingers fumbled with the seal. “Why don’t you look and tell me what it says –”

Her mother raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. Louisa didn’t hold with hesitation. She’d always been of the mindset that you ought to rip off the plaster and see what you were dealing with. Straightforward, unwavering honesty. Except, of course, when it came to running away with the groundsman who’d got you pregnant out of wedlock. That, she had preferred to tell her parents in a letter.

Sophie looked at her grades. She looked at them again. Then checked that they had the right name at the top, then turned over the page to see if there was a postscript that said this was all some big practical joke. Had Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes come up with a fake results card she didn’t know about? She held the letter up to the light, like it was counterfeit money. But there was no mistaking the gleam.

“I got all Os and EEs,” she said quietly. Then louder, a relieved laugh bubbling out of her, “All Os and EEs!”

“Soph!” Her mother cupped her face in her hands, not seeming to notice she was getting soap suds all over her daughter’s cheeks. “That’s good, isn’t it?” she checked.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.” All Os and EEs. It resounded in her mind again and again. An EE in Potions, when Snape had looked at her for five years like she was something particularly disgusting on the underside of his shoe whenever she’d tried to ask a question! An EE in Defence Against the Dark Arts, more attributable to Jem’s tutelage than to any of her teachers! And an O in Charms – she could sing with happiness.

“Go tell your father,” said Louisa, flicking her with the end of the dishcloth. “He’s laid up in bed. This’ll put a smile on his face, grumpy git.”

“Back?” Sophie asked, wrinkling her nose. For a man who’d spent so much time on his feet throughout his life, Michael Kincaid was spending an increasing portion of his life flat on his back, muttering curse words whenever he missed a day’s shooting.

“What shall I tell Grandpa?” her mother called as Sophie bounded upstairs. “All As and A*s?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

It felt like a literal weight off her shoulders. She sat with Michael for hours, weighing up the pros and cons of taking DADA alongside Charms and Transfiguration, now that she’d proved she wasn’t as bad at defensive spells as all that. Michael knew next to nothing about the dark arts, even less about how to defend oneself against them, but such insignificant barriers didn’t stop him from giving advice.

“This DADA business,” he said, trying to look at her propped up on his stack of neck pillows, “that’s the kind of thing you want to get good at, chick. I know you like your Charms and that, but there’s no point in being able to transition things –”

“Trans _figure_ things –”

“If you can’t hold your own in a fight.”

Sophie opened her mouth to say something dismissive about not having got into too many fights so far in her school career, but closed it again just as quickly. Cedric had hardly been a troublemaker either. He’d been one of the most gifted wizards in the school, if the Goblet’s judgement were to be trusted. It hadn’t stopped Voldemort from being able to snuff him out in an instant. In a world where things like that were possible – where your life could be pulled out from under your feet before you could say ‘Expelliarmus’ – then maybe Sophie would need to defend herself more than she’d thought.

She’d liked DADA under Professor Lupin; everyone had. She still remembered his kind brown eyes as she faced down her Boggart (the water spirits that had terrified her in childhood, made ridiculous by a ‘plug’ being pulled on the loch, draining them off into the ground again). He’d made DADA seem real and important: Professor Quirrell had them copying out of textbooks most of the time; Lockhart had been more interested in fielding questions about his advertising campaign with Sleekeazy and will-they-won’t-they romance with some Veela model in Denmark; and even before Moody had been unmasked as a Death Eater gone rogue, he’d scared Sophie too much to engage her. Maybe if their teacher this year were something like Lupin – encouraging, committed, interesting and interested – then DADA wouldn’t be so bad.

All these thoughts swirled in her head as she dashed off a note to Fred for the Ministry owl to carry back. _Your girlfriend is a genius,_ she wrote. _Come and celebrate with her._ She hesitated putting the envelope in the owl’s mouth. She didn’t know quite where she was sending this letter to. In between telling her about the huge bust-up between Percy and Arthur and copying her in on boring business stuff (Gringott’s were being difficult about rent), Fred had told her that he wasn’t going to be at home all summer. He said not to worry, the owls would find him anyway, she wouldn’t have to lapse into withdrawals just yet, but he wouldn’t tell her where he was. He had a different answer for every time she asked, each more ridiculous than the last. In his last letter, he’d written something about how he was sorry she had to find out this way, but he’d fallen in love with Winky the house elf, and they’d gone into hiding until the world could accept their love. She shook her head, added a postscript to the letter – _Winky cordially not invited._ She’d get it out of him once he came up.

She spent the next hour on the phone to Grandpa Louis, bellowing her grades in the hopes that he’d hear them. At around three, an owl flew directly into the French windows, absolutely knackered. He’d travelled nigh on five hundred miles in one go. No wonder the thing needed sugar water. He’d started in London, where Jem was staying with Anna for the last few weeks of the summer. In Jem’s typically messy handwriting, made even more uneven by excitement, she declared that she was officially one step closer to becoming an Auror. Even Snape couldn’t turn away an Outstanding student from his NEWT class. Anna was pretty happy – you couldn’t churn out the sheer volume of flashcards that she had and _not_ pass your OWLs – but she was grumbling about an Acceptable in Care of Magical Creatures. She was trying to hide it from her mother, lest Henrietta take matters into her own hands. Anna’s mother knew nothing about the wizarding world, including the name of the wizard she’d hooked up with one hazy night in the late seventies, but that wouldn’t stop her from marching up to the Ministry and giving them a piece of her mind.

From there, the owl (now perkier after a dead mouse Louisa had fished out from the cellar) had made the long trip from Anna’s all the way up to Dundee. There, Cho had added her own results breakdown to the letter, before resealing it and sending the owl up to Craig Castle with little more than a five-minute pit-stop. Her note was short but smudge-free – she’d even made a joke about how she’d outperformed Anna in Care of Magical Creatures. After all, they’d sat all their OWLs before the last task. Cho had been an assiduous student, delaying dates so that she could drum this last bit of Transfig theory into her head. Sophie ran her thumb over her friend’s writing, sighed. How much Cho must have kicked herself in the last two months, wondering why she ever thought that goldfinch to golden snitch transfiguration was more important than another afternoon with Cedric.

Which brought Sophie back to what she’d been thinking about all summer. On the kitchen table, hidden under council leaflets and shopping lists and receipts, was the beginnings of a letter to Hestia Jones, a writer at the _Prophet._ Whatever you thought of the _Prophet,_ you couldn’t deny that their summer internship programmes was one of the best around. Competition was fierce – she knew two boys in Slytherin had already sent off their submissions before school was out, and Katie Bell had mentioned something about going for the sports reporting post when Sophie last went out with the Gryffindor team. Fred couldn’t understand all her dithering. He said that she could send in notes from a product meeting and they’d still be fighting over who got to supervise her. But as she’d told him, it wasn’t as easy as just knocking something out.

And she knew that because she’d tried – for six weeks straight – to write something. She’d come up completely dry – though, in fairness, she never should have tried to write about Quidditch. She could barely keep track of who was on which team, let alone write insightful commentary about their Hawkeye Attacking Formation (Hawks _head,_ even – Cho had corrected it in big red capitals when she sent it over for a proofread). She’d tried a bit of law and order, but it was done to death. She couldn’t find it in herself to write about the mistreatment of house elves or centaurs or whoever it was Hermione Granger had been going on about last time she was in the Gryffindor common room. The one idea she couldn’t shake was something about Cedric, but she’d cried so hard when she started a draft earlier in the holidays that Michael suggested it might be best to put that one to the side for now.

But six weeks on, thinking about Cedric wasn’t an automatic trigger to the tear-ducts. He’d moved off the front pages now; it wouldn’t be long until another boy died before his time. Maybe they’d call him ‘the next Cedric Diggory’. Sophie remembered back to the Leaving Feast, the most subdued in Hogwarts history, where Dumbledore spoke about Cedric with great gravitas but not much feeling. The perfunctory obituary the _Prophet_ and some international publications had run mentioned Quidditch and being a prefect and not much else. They’d kept it vague enough that you could have replaced Ced’s name with that of any other student and the meaning wouldn’t change.

She’d never forget what happened after the Leaving Feast, either – the impromptu wake they’d held in their pyjamas, telling each other stories about Cedric from the last five years that took place on Hogsmeade trips, in hospital wing, at breakfast tables. The real Cedric, not the pallid pretty boy the _Prophet_ had memorialised. She wanted to tell those stories again. To anyone who’d listen.

_Every September,_ she began, _someone falls into the lake. Do you remember who it was in your year? Did they get a nickname, something about the Giant Squid or seaweed, that stuck so determinedly that you’d almost forgotten why you ever called him Gillyweed Gethin in the first place? It’s a time-honoured tradition; your new friends prod you along with oars, shriek when they think they see tentacles, laugh when you scream. But if you were a first-year when Cedric Diggory was a prefect, your experience was different. He’d haul you out of the water himself, hanging his robe out to dry in front of the Hufflepuff common room fire without a complaint. He’d sneak you some of the prefect’s stash of chocolate to buck you up a bit, pass you a towel so the Sorting Hat didn’t get soaking wet. Because Cedric Diggory was nice – to everyone and anyone, asking for nothing in return…_

She wrote right the way through the afternoon. Louisa put sandwiches beside her but she barely touched them. She recounted Cedric’s graciousness with the press, refusing to bite stories to Rita. How he’d snuck into Hogsmeade to practise apparition so he could surprise his father with a trip home on his birthday.

_Cedric Diggory was killed, in cold blood, by Lord Voldemort, on the twenty-fourth of June. Do not let them tell you otherwise. We owe it to Cedric – and to ourselves – to remember the truth._

Just as she set the quill down, wrist aching but heart considerably lighter, something smacked against the window.

“They’ve got a dreadful sense of direction,” said her mother, picking up a wounded owl for the third time that day. “I think it’s Errol!”

“That was quick.” But Sophie wouldn’t have put it past the twins to figure out some kind of turbo-boosting charm for the family owl, well-loved but definitely past it. She stroked his head absent-mindedly, flicked another dead mouse towards him (they should really get someone in to look at the cellar). Fred had sent her a photograph rather than a letter, scribbling his message on the back of it. He and George were waving madly at the camera, hair standing up on end like mad scientists. Wherever they were, they’d managed to sneak most of their products along with them; in amongst the debris of the experiment was Ginny, eyeing the toy umbrella from the Mary Poppins range appreciatively.

_Kincaid,_

_If the testing of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder hadn’t already knocked my socks off (picture provided for your viewing pleasure), then your news would have done. George says well done, clever clogs (and I concur). Gin doesn’t have a message, she says she doesn’t really know you and it would be weird. Mum is not on speaking terms with us at the moment (broken vase, say no more), but if she were, she’d say well done too. As for me, I say you better be waiting for me at eight o’clock on Saturday. And if you don’t have a kilt for me in Kincaid tartan. I will be bitterly disappointed._

_Love,_

_Fred_

“Where do you keep Dad’s old kilts?”

“They’re in a box under the bed in the spare room,” said Louisa, eyes narrowed. “Why?"

Sophie grinned. “No reason.” She swept back out into the garden, giving Errol another mouse while she was at it. If there were ever a day to treat an owl, it was today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! It's been a whirlwind couple of months (uni is fantastic but also incredibly tiring and time-consuming, who knew?) but I'm so excited to be back and writing for a little while.
> 
> Quick disclaimers: process on this fic is going to be much more gradual. STIW was written very quickly because I basically had nothing else to do - from idea to final words posted, I think it was about three months. That definitely won't be the case with SOTT! I currently have a six week break from uni and I will be writing as much as I can during that period but I also have a ton of vacation work/friends to see/chill time to enjoy. For now, I'd recommend setting up post notifications if you want to keep up with the fic because I reckon the schedule will be a little unpredictable.
> 
> If you're new - hi! Maybe go check out STIW unless you enjoy having names, faces and backstories thrown at you all in one. If you're a returning reader - hi! I hope I've jogged your memory sufficiently as to where we left off!
> 
> Thank you so, so much to all who've read this far. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well xx


	2. Wreck My Plans, That's My Man

Apparition may have been an exciting method of transportation – Sophie was itching to begin lessons as soon as they got back to school – but it wasn’t flawless. Queasiness, splinching, trying to navigate when you’re whizzing through time and space – and the _noise_ it made. Perhaps it was unreasonable to expect to magically transport your cells from one end of the country to the other without a little bit of a pop, but it certainly made the whole thing a bit more obvious. The last thing Sophie needed was to call everyone’s attention to her new boyfriend with what sounded like a gun crack. She’d spent the day coming up with alternative explanations – daytime fireworks; Doris’ scare cannon the next field over – and had sent Fred a final missive reminding him not to trip over any tree roots on his landing.

“If he gets here early enough, there shouldn’t be any hikers or anything,” she said at dinner, worrying at the edge of her napkin. “And if we do, Fred’s of age, so he can Obliviate them –”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, chick.” Her father wiped sauce from his face. “Tomorrow’s the first day of the season. Everyone will be down at the shoot.”

“Oh.” It made things easier, she supposed – though a dash less exciting. Part of her had been looking forward to smuggling Fred in through the back door, away from the prying eyes of the village.

“Everyone apart from _us,_ he means,” said her mother. She kicked Michael unsubtly under the table. “If you think you’re in a state to shoot grouse all morning, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Give over. I’m practically back to normal,” said her father, as if Sophie hadn’t almost put _her_ back out hauling him out of bed. “But, yes, we’ll be here. Good to get a measure of the lad.”

“Your father’s been looking forward to this, you know,” said Louisa, not bothering to hide her smirk. “Chance to go full-on Highland patriarch.”

“Who said anything about patriarch?” retorted Michael, even as he cracked his fingers like a mafia boss. “Just going to have a nice, friendly chat with the lad.”

“Like those nice, friendly chats Grandpa had with you?” asked Sophie innocently.

Michael paled. Even seventeen years later, the memory of Louis de Lesseps’ bulging eyes struck fear in his heart. He grimaced. “This Fred hasn’t got you pregnant and spirited you over the border. So not _quite_ as nice and friendly as that.”

Twisting about in front of the mirror at seven thirty that morning, Sophie wondered how it was possible that all her clothes had become repulsive to her overnight. Fred always said he never really cared what she wore, but that was because he mostly saw her in uniform. He’d only ever seen her all dolled up at the Yule Ball – and, short of donning one of her mother’s cocktail dresses again, she wasn’t going to be able to replicate that this morning. She’d tried on give different permutations of shorts and a T-shirt (sunglasses in hair, on shirt, held in her hands like some kind of weapon) before she settled on exactly what she’d laid out the night before. Picking her way through the forest where she’d told Fred to meet her, she thought absently that she ought to have painted her toes. It seemed suddenly vulnerable to be in flip-flops without a pedicure – like Fred would take one look at her feet and apparate off home again. She was still staring down when she heard that familiar voice for the first time all summer.

“Good to see you’re being careful, Kincaid.” And there he was, barely six feet away. Backpack filled to the brim, as if he was staying for a week, not just the day; hair cropped closer to his head (thank _Merlin_ ); beaming away. “A very beautiful woman once told me to watch out for tree roots.”

“You’re such a little shit,” she breathed, but her words were swallowed up as she ran to him. She didn’t care about tree roots or nail varnish or anything else – just _Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred,_ like it was the only thought in her head. She sighed with happiness as her fingertips scratched at the nape of his neck, newly exposed to the elements. Molly Weasley deserved an Order of Merlin for getting him to cut his hair. She’d have to write a letter and thank her personally.

“ _Reparo,_ ” she heard him whisper as they pulled apart at last. Her T-Shirt, which she hadn’t even seen tear on a branch, stitched itself up again, good as new. He pulled back, held her by the shoulders like he was inspecting her. “There. Aren’t I useful to have around? You’ve been getting yourself into all sorts of scrapes without my stabilising influence.”

“I do have a tendency to run riot,” she agreed, tilting her head to the side. “And your whole being-of-age schtick might come in handy. I can keep you on as an assistant. You can do all my chores.”

“Tempting.” Fred nodded soberly. “And what’s the policy on assistants snogging the boss senseless against this conveniently placed tree?”

“The boss can think of preferable locations,” she admitted, feeling her T-shirt threaten to tear against the bark all over again, “but she’s open to negotiations.”

She was still pulling twigs out of her hair fifteen minutes later, leading Fred back to the house. She was running through their cover story last time, should any of the neighbours pop in to take a look at Sophie’s new boyfriend – they went to boarding school together, and they’d never heard the words Divination or Quidditch in their lives – when Fred interrupted her.

“Bloody hell, Kincaid.” He turned to her, slack-jawed. “You might have mentioned you were medieval royalty.”

She groaned. Yes, Craig Castle looked pretty impressive, but the most impressive thing about it was that it was still standing. What with the shaky foundations, lack of central heating and distinct possibility of a ghost in the basement, more than half the house was out-of-bounds. But still – she’d given him the impression that she lived in some cute Highland cottage, and that wasn’t exactly true.

But trust Fred to start making jokes about it. “Will the butler even let me in?” he worried, looking aghast at his trainers and jumper with the patched-up elbows. “Or is there a servant’s entrance you’d rather I went through?”

He could have gone on like this forever. Sophie was sure that, had he known the song _Uptown Girl_ , he would have been humming it. She rolled her eyes. “If you’re good, I’ll show you the secret passages.”

“I knew there was a reason why I loved you.”

Fred was, predictably, a hit with her mother. He couldn’t have gone over better if he’d been drawn up to Louisa Kincaid’s exact specifications. From swearing blind that this was the best tea he’d ever had – must be the Highland cows’ milk – to asking her in all seriousness whether she hadn’t been awfully _young_ when she’d had Sophie, he was sticking it on, big time.

“Merlin, whose boyfriend are you?” she asked, as Fred carried the cups and saucers over to the sink. “You’ve never done the washing up in your life.”

“And I don’t intend to start now,” he replied, shooting her a devilish grin as he muttered an incantation under his breath. Instantly, the dishes began to wash themselves, before placing themselves delicately on the sideboard. “Don’t worry, Kincaid. You’re still my favourite girl.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she began, before the sounds of wheezing from the staircase became too loud to ignore. She rolled her eyes, came to her father’s aid.

“You know,” she told him as she shouldered all six-foot-four of him, “you should really stay in bed if it’s as bad as this.”

“Not a thing wrong with me, chick,” he boomed, as he went through a series of facial contortions that a mime artist would envy. He squeezed her shoulder, presumably all in good patriarchal spirit, but tight enough to give her a bruise the next morning. “Now,” he said, hobbling into the kitchen, “let’s meet this feller of yours.”

Sophie was expecting Fred to bound across the kitchen floor to shake Michael’s hand, coming out with some variant of “charmed, I’m sure” before launching into a passionate discussion of shooting (as he’d joked in one of his last letters, “those flashcards I’ve made about your life are really paying off”). But he clutched the back of his chair like it was the only thing keeping him steady.

“Mr Kincaid,” he said, nodding absurdly. “It’s great to meet you. Sophie’s told me a lot about you.”

“Isn’t that my line?” said Michael absently, more focused on trying to locate his hot compress. Oblivious to the scene in his kitchen (Fred, centre-stage, deer in the headlights; daughter, beside him, baffled; wife, stage right, smirking), Michael sighed. “Got any good spells for pain relief, Fred?”

Sophie narrowed her eyes at her father. “Hello? There is someone in the room who wanted to be a Healer for five years?”

“I know, chick,” said her father. “But you’re underage. You can’t use any of your mumbo-jumbo on me yet.”

“I don’t know anything that would work direct on it,” said Fred tentatively. If he’d heard Michael’s diss towards magical culture over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, he didn’t let on. “But the best thing for it is heat.”

“I’d take your advice, lad,” said Michael, “if I could find that blasted heat compress.” He looked at his wife, the faintest hint of accusation in his eyes.

“If you’re going to ask me again what happened to your heat compress,” said Louisa, perfectly poised, “I shall scream. I haven’t seen it all day.”

“It’s not a compress you need,” interjected Fred, starting to sound like his old self. “You can use anything. Flannel, cushion, whatever. It’s the heating charm that does it. Keeps it at the same temperature all day. No need for a microwave.” He gave Sophie a relieved smile, immensely pleased with himself for remembering the right muggle terminology. His eyebrows shot right up into his hairline when Michael Kincaid clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“That sounds like just the thing,” he said, thrusting a tea towel towards him. “Go for your life, young man.”

“He’s quite useful to have around the place, isn’t he?” whispered Louisa. Fred was warming up properly now, chatting to Sophie’s dad all about the injuries he and George had sustained this summer alone testing out products, and the most useful Muggle products to have on stand-by. He swore blind by arnica, though he’d found there was nothing a Pepperup Potion couldn’t solve. “Not bad to look at, either.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” said Sophie sternly, though she couldn’t help but stare when Fred peeled off his jumper, the heating charm apparently having its desired effect.

Her mother squeezed her elbow. “Well, for all your father’s posturing, he’s purring away now, isn’t he?”

The relief on Michael’s face was so acute that Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d offered Fred her hand in marriage just to say thank you. Despite being a strange boy who’d influenced their daughter to give up medicine and devote herself to the slightly more precarious pastimes of writing freelance obituaries and dreaming up joke shops, Fred was going over quite well with her parents.

The biggest test was Angus. He stopped by during elevenses, not bothering to pretend he was there to do anything other than stare down Fred. But Fred, emboldened by an approving nod from Michael Kincaid, was undeterred. He tried endless avenues of conversation until Louisa threw him a lifeline – Angus was in charge of organising a fireworks show for Burns Night.

“Fireworks?” he repeated excitedly. Here was something he could talk about until the hippogriffs came home. “Where are you getting your stuff from?”

Angus gave a vague grumble, which Louisa helpfully translated: “They’ve been chatting to some boys in Glen Esk, but their asking price is astronomical.”

“Don’t bother,” Fred declared. “What you need are Weasleys’ Wildfire Whizbangs.”

“Weasley…” Angus was loath to admit that he’d been listening to anything Fred had to say. He eventually asked: “That your parents’ business?”  
“Me and my brother,” said Fred proudly. “We’re not ready for sale yet, but definitely by January we could have a conversation.”

Angus considered it. On the one hand, this gangly git had not stopped to draw breath since they’d met, and he had serious doubts about whether he were good enough for Sophie. On the other hand, he seemed to know what he was on about. More impressively, as an Englishman, he knew when Burns Night was without being told. “I’ll think it over,” he relented, eyeing Fred with more interest than suspicion. “What would I owe you?”

“We’re thinking five galleons for the Basic Blaze box,” said Fred automatically, “and more like twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe, which is probably what you’re in the market for. Got the whole village to impress.” He trailed off with a start, realising that, for all his efforts to pass as Muggle, he’d only gone and used wizarding currency.

Fortunately for him, Angus was hard of hearing, and thought he would be getting a pretty good bargain if even the deluxe package only ran to twenty pounds. “If we talk again at Christmas,” he said, turning to Sophie and softening like butter, “then we can sort out payment.”

“Sounds good,” she said, dumbfounded. Fred’s grin only grew wider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, my laptop absolutely HATES this chapter - when I first wrote it in September, it crashed halfway through and I had to rewrite the thing from memory (I could have cried), and it crashed again during editing. So I hope you enjoy it somewhat more than my Macbook did. Yes, that IS an evermore lyric as the chapter title, you can expect a lot more of those. Love and light and fight the good fight xx


	3. Let Me In, Let Me Get Closer

By four that afternoon, she couldn’t take it any more. The constant parade of nosy neighbours dropping in on their way back from the shoot under the flimsiest of pretences. She grabbed Fred by the wrist and hauled him up from the kitchen table. “I’m taking Fred out the back to show him the forest.”

“I hope that’s not a euphemism,” called her mother, before telling her to put on sun cream before she was let out the door. It was a haughty but sun-protected Sophie that pushed Fred up against a tree and snogged the life out of him the second they were out of view.

“Bloody hell, Kincaid,” he said breathlessly, fingers skimming down to her waist. “If I knew you got so turned on watching me charm old men, I’d have tried much harder with Flitwick.”

“If you’re going to bring Flitwick up every time we get off,” she warned him, “I’ll send you straight back home.”

“Please.” He levelled a look at her, all the confidence in the world packed into one lanky frame. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve spent six weeks _dreaming_ about me.”

“Have not.”

“You have, too. I can see it in your eyes. Your cards are criminally far away from your chest right now.”

She couldn’t think of a witty enough retort. She was out of practice – by the end of the school year, she’d been able to volley back insults and one-liners without so much as a thought. She settled for an eye roll of Anna proportions, bending down and picking up loose fishing line to hide her red face. She made to chuck it inside the outhouse, not realising that this allowed the mid-afternoon sun to beam directly onto the very thing she’d been trying to keep hidden.

“You,” said Fred, who looked like all of his Christmases had come at once, “are such a little liar, Sophie Kincaid.”

“I never _directly_ lied about it –”

“ _It got destroyed in a fire,_ ” he mocked in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. “ _I haven’t seen it in years._ ”

“Well, I _haven’t._ I can’t think the last time I took it out.”

He cradled the broom in his hands like it was a living, breathing thing. “Do you even know what model this is?”

She didn’t even bother to pretend like she knew. “Comet 220?”  
“You philistine.” He scrounged about for some broom polish, unearthing a pot underneath a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ that she’d opened exactly once, aged eleven. “What you have here is a supremely flyable 260. And she’s beautiful.”

“She’s temperamental,” she corrected him. She could count pretty much on one hand the number of times she’d flown since the end of first year. Of course, there’d been the initial thrill and headrush of taking to the skies (“ _so_ much cooler than an aeroplane,” she remembered saying to pureblood Jem after one of their first lessons, who’d pretended to know just what she was talking about). But then other sensations started to take over. Dizziness, when a Bludger sent her careening off in the wrong direction. Nausea when she whooshed up too soon after breakfast. A dull ache around her ribcage, reminding her that she really didn’t have the core strength for this sort of thing.

One look at Fred’s face told her he was committed to helping her recapture the magic of first flight. There went her plans for an afternoon spent getting off at various points round the castle perimeter. “All she needs is some proper steering. Polish her up and she’ll look good as new.”

She would’ve done it herself, but Fred was in his element – his own Comet had certainly seen better days, battered after six years of heavy-duty use. Holding Sophie’s Comet was like handling a brand-new broom. So she busied herself organising another corner of the shed (they _really_ needed that clear-out that Michael had been promising since pre-Hogwarts days), trying to ignore every crash and bang she heard behind her (how was it possible for broom polishing to be so destructive?) But when she turned around at last to see Fred pointing the broom handle towards her, the debris around her melted away.

“What do you say? Fancy another crack at it?”

She looked at him for a beat, trying to play for time. Then, “You know this isn’t Ottery St. Whatever-pole, right?”  
“Don’t play coy, Kincaid. You know where I live. You write hearts around it in your letters.”

“Do not. And my point is, witches soaring through the sky isn’t just part of another Saturday here.”

“You heard your dad.” He gestured with his head in the opposite direction, way down at the bottom of the hill. “The only people still about are coming up from the shoot. They’ll just think we’re a particularly speedy bird.”

“And what if they try to gun down this particularly speedy bird?”

“Then that,” he said, thrusting the broom ever closer to her, “is what magic is for.”

It took a little bit of persuading (“Is this just an elaborate excuse to feel me up?” she’d asked when Fred mounted the broom behind her, a question he determinedly refused to answer). But looking around at the clear skies, feeling the breeze on her face, a small part of Sophie acknowledged that maybe an afternoon fly wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

“I hate this bit,” she moaned, looking longingly at the solid ground beneath her. “It makes me feel so sick, taking off.”

“You need to learn to spot,” declared Fred, sounding for all the world like a ballet dancer. He would sound confident, she thought to herself. He’d been flying practically before he could walk.

“I’ve _tried_ spotting –”

“Hey, what kind of bird is that?”

“What – ?”And just as she trained her eyes on the spot Fred had pointed to, he gave one powerful push of his legs that sent them soaring into the sky. She let out a breathy little laugh of disbelief. There was no bird anywhere in the vicinity, of course. But nor did she feel that familiar nausea coming over her.

“What do I do now?”

Fred leaned back, laughing. The broom swayed in a way that didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. “I thought baby Kincaid would have made flashcards at the end of every lesson. At the very least, devised a helpful mnemonic.”

“Baby Kincaid was a little preoccupied,” she said uneasily, thinking just how hard they’d hit the ground if they fell now. Tripping over tree roots would be the least of their problems. Sensing that he was losing her, Fred placed his steady hands on top of hers.

“It’s easy,” he said soothingly. “Just think of where you want to go, lean forward and –”

The rest of his words were lost in the wind as Sophie sped them forward, up and away from the forest, looking down at the heather fields.

“How was that?”  
“A little jolty, but you’ve got it.” His hands squeezed hers, which had been clutching onto the broomstick for dear life, but were beginning to relax now. “Lead on, Kincaid. Show me where you played _Alice in Wonderland._ ”

Figuring they could always throw up a disillusionment charm if they got too close to big crowds (whatever _big crowds_ meant in the remotest region of the Highlands), Sophie took Fred on a whistle-stop tour of her childhood stomping grounds. Coming up to Craig Castle after term-time at primary school in London had always felt like pressing pause on the world. It was quite difficult to believe as a child that the bustling metropolis in which she was learning to write, read and finger-paint could be part of the same country as this rural idyll. She’d learned to make her own fun in the holidays – brewing ‘potions’ in muddy puddles, long before she knew there was such a thing as ‘real’ potions; playing every single role in her re-enactments of storybooks, swapping between characters so quickly she gave herself whiplash; running through the forest all day, every day, in the tiniest of shorts and t-shirts and never once getting a scratch on her (“it’s like magic,” Louisa had said incredulously).

“Baby Kincaid sounds like a laugh,” said Fred approvingly as they flew over the loch. “I think we’d have got along swimmingly.”

“Depends.” She pretended to consider it. “Wasn’t your hair a bit of a state when you were little?”  
“My hair’s been a state as long as you’ve known me.” A quick glance behind her confirmed this – the wind had whipped right through his shorter cut, making it tuft out at the temples.

“It’s nice now,” she said, even daring to take one hand off the broom and reach back to ruffle it. “Remember to thank your mum from me.”  
“Let the record show that you still fancied me with my old hair,” he intoned, twitching the broom so that they just missed the cormorant’s nest. “Hark at you. Flying with reckless abandon. Imperilling the life of your poor boyfriend.”

“Look, Ma, no hands,” she crowed. She’d spent so many years focusing on all the things she didn’t like about flying – how it disoriented her, how she never felt fully in control, how the lash of the wind against her cheeks always left her red-faced – that she’d forgotten how free it made her feel. But she’d never felt like this before, not even the first time she picked up a broom. Like she was lighter than air. Like anything was possible.

“There’s a first-team position with your name on it,” he said as they touched down beside a loch where Michael had tried to teach her to swim when she was three. She’d gone blue from the cold almost instantly, at which point he had to leap in to rescue her and ask her not to say anything about this to her mother. “But not before the girls teach you about speed limits.”

“We didn’t go _that_ fast,” she said, even though she was still out of breath. She couldn’t stop grinning. It was the funniest thing. She felt like her insides had been all mashed up and put back together again. Perhaps they had been, when they’d done that loop-de-loop.

“I think we set a new land speed record somewhere over the forest.” He tossed a pebble into the water, revelled in its splash. “Never took you for such a dangerous driver.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” she teased, sticking her chin into the air, all obstinate. It didn’t surprise her when Fred scoffed. He had always been able to read her like a book – it was part of the reason they worked so well brainstorming ideas for WWW. They may not have twin telepathy, but Fred always knew that the tiniest twist in the corner of her mouth meant she wasn’t a hundred per cent sold, and he should go back to the drawing board. He knew how genuinely attached she was to her favourite quill and always nicked another to dash off last-minute homework. He knew how she took her tea (she didn’t; almost always went for hot chocolate, instead). But there was something she didn’t know about him.

“Hey,” she said hesitantly as another pebble arced into the loch. “Where have you been this summer, anyway?”  
If she hadn’t been studying his side profile quite so carefully, she might have missed the twitch in his jaw. He smoothed his face almost immediately, saying, “I told you. Shacked up with Winky. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Part of her wanted to give in then, join in the fun and imagine what sorts of naughtiness Winky might have demanded in return for bed and board and the most spectacular cooking. But she persisted. “But really. Where have you been?”

“Scouted for the World Cup.” This pebble fell just short of the water, rolling uncertainly into the grass. His aim was off. For a Beater, who’d been extolling his skills for the entire hour they’d been flying, Sophie found that more than a little bit suspect. “Devon’s answer to Viktor Krum,” he was saying airily. “It’ll be in all the papers.”  
“Fred.”

“I’ve been doing recon on Fleur Delacour,” he insisted, but the light in his eyes was dimming. “Mum wants to see if there’s more to the story about improving her _Eenglish_ than Bill’s letting on.”

Fred was the master of evading searching questions put to him by McGonagall (or, worse, Filch). But he was usually singularly forthcoming when it came to Sophie. He’d delivered an entirely uncensored account of Percy’s falling-out with Arthur (she didn’t even know some of these swear words _existed_ ) so he clearly wasn’t trying to hide _everything_. Just some of it. And where it was all happening. However much her boyfriend told her he loved her and he missed her and he couldn’t wait to show off to all her OAP mates in the village, it didn’t inspire a girl with much confidence.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s one thing,” she said, watching him as he gnawed at his thumbnail. “Like, if it’s something private that you’re not ready to talk about, then I get that. It’s just – a little out of character for you. That’s all.”

“Should I be careful with this tea you’ve made, then? Have you spiked it with Veritaserum?” he joked, but his heart wasn’t in it. He leaned back on his hands, looked up at the sky. Like he was appealing to something.

“I just mean, like – I’ve confided in you a lot this summer.” Nightmares where Cho came up to her in the dorm, crying hysterically, dripping wet like she’d just climbed out of the Black Lake, demanding to know why it hadn’t been Fred instead. How, if Sophie were a _real_ friend, if she _meant_ what she said about wanting to take the pain away, then she’d have switched places somehow. She knew it didn’t make sense. But it still left her panting when she woke up, the feeling of dread sitting on her stomach like a stone. “And I don’t you want you to tell me if you’re not ready. I would just like to think you trusted me with this stuff.”

He sighed. “Of course I _trust_ you. If it were just up to me, then I’d have told you months ago. But Mum said that Dumbledore –”

“ _Dumbledore_?” asked Sophie incredulously. A student had died at Hogwarts not three months ago. An international media frenzy had erupted ever since, with requests for comment from the office of Rita Skeeter reaching the castle every day. And, if rumours were to be believed, Harry Potter had gone and got himself arrested for underage magic. Dumbledore, she considered, had quite enough plates to spin without adding regular conferences with Molly Weasley to his schedule.

“Shit. I wasn’t meant to say that.”

“What does Dumbledore have to do with anything?”

“Soph.” Right. Real name. Serious conversation time. He was facing her cross-legged, rubbing the nape of his neck. “It’s big. Okay? Really big. Even Harry doesn’t know yet.”

“Okay.”

“So you can’t tell anyone. Dumbledore’s orders.”

“Okay.”

“And ‘don’t tell anyone’ doesn’t mean tell Jem and Cho and Annabelle –”

“I promise.” The childish part of her wanted to kick off at what he’d just said, accuse him of calling her a gossip and untrustworthy and all that sort of thing. But a much bigger part of her saw how genuinely conflicted Fred seemed, how much he’d struggled keeping this hidden for months. And judging by his jiggling knee, he couldn’t wait to let it out, for all his caveats and reminders. So that was how he came to tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Order of the Phoenix.

Before this summer, Sophie had paid little attention to the First Wizarding War. By the time Flitwick rocked up on her doorstep, brandishing her acceptance letter to Hogwarts, he’d been able to sum up two millennia of magic in a few digestible paragraphs for Michael and Louisa. The war, and the threat to Muggleborns that went with it, was long over. She knew the same things most people her age did – there’d been a few years of intense struggle, and then baby Harry Potter had saved the day before he’d even learned to speak. But ever since Cedric had died, she’d found herself wondering more and more about that first war. Whether there’d maybe been another Cedric back then, someone smiley and honest and good, who’d been killed without warning. Whether anyone had stood up to avenge him.

And people had, it turned out. According to Fred, whose words were pouring out of him almost quicker than he could say them, his uncles had been among their ranks. It was funny to think of Molly and Arthur having links to an insurgent group. But she’d never have imagined herself having links to a martyr.

“George and I were too little to remember them properly,” Fred was saying. “Perce says he does but he’s lying. Bill and Charlie do. They’d come to ours to recuperate after missions, give Mum a bit of a break on the childcare front, too. It was Fabian and Gideon who taught us how to hit Bludgers,” he said proudly. “Said we had a lot of pent-up energy. They’d only stay a few weeks. They were getting too old for it by the end. But they were cool. Exciting, you know?”

“You were so little,” she breathed. She couldn’t stop picturing tiny Fred and George, sneaking off to try and eat toadstools or take their baby brooms out for a spin, while their ever-pregnant mother waited for her brothers’ clock hands to switch from ‘in peril’ to ‘home’ (the only two places they ever seemed to be). They used to play Death Eaters in the garden, in which someone (usually Bill) got to laugh maniacally and someone else (usually Percy) was subjected to ‘torture’ with pointy sticks for wands and nonsense words for curses. Molly went ballistic when she found out and they weren’t allowed to play it again. Fred and George were too young to really know what they’d been banned from. They were just kids. Growing up in extraordinary times, not that they knew it. Trying to find the funny side.

“Are all of you in on it? The Order?” she asked, when his story was finished. She imagined the Weasley siblings like the children in _The Sound of Music,_ lining up with military precision whenever Dumbledore von Trapp blew the whistle.

“Trying to be.” Fred plucked irritably at the grass. “This is the thing. Gin’s too young, she’s not allowed to be in on anything, which is probably for the best.”

Sophie snorted. Based on the little she’d seen of the youngest Weasley, dancing until she dropped at the Yule Ball and getting hideously drunk on Firewhisky siphoned from each brother’s goblet, she couldn’t imagine that news sitting well with Ginny.

“And Ron’s Ron.” Fred made a bit of a face. “He’s my brother and everything, but he’s not ready for a war. All Voldemort has to do is transfigure into a bloody spider or something and all that Gryffindor courage will melt away.”

“What about Charlie?” she asked. What she knew of that brother came from the pictures of long-ago trips to Egypt, or garbled stories from Jem and Anna about his form on the Quidditch pitch. “Surely they want him for – international contacts, or something.”

“Yeah. Though an army of Hungarian Horntails would be useful.” Fred raked his fingernails through the soil and sighed. “He’s keeping an ear open, apparently. Bill, too.”

“And Percy – ?”

“Is a non-starter,” he said darkly. “His head’s too far up Fudge’s arse and he refuses to dislodge it. Too warm.”

“So that leaves you and George,” she said, deciding to leave the He’s Still Your Brother lecture for later.

“Me and George,” he affirmed, chin resting on his knees. “Not that Mum listens to a word we say.”

“You’re seventeen.”

“Right in one, Kincaid. We’re of age.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, playing with all the grass he’d pulled up and scattered around them. “Grandpa still treats Mum like a kid and she’s been out of his house for eighteen years.”

“As much as I always love a reminder of your mum’s licentious past –” he did – she’d had to kick him under the table twice at lunch for smirking at the mention of Louisa’s uni days, secrets that Sophie was to spill on pain of death – “the comparison doesn’t really stand. I’m not coming to Mum saying ‘hey, bail me out, I got a girl pregnant and, by the way, we’re getting married and you’re not invited’.”

“Your mum would never forgive me,” said Sophie, grimacing as she remembered Rita Skeeter’s infamous column that had unveiled their relationship to every woman of a certain age in wizarding Britain. The pregnant underage thing, Molly would possibly get over. But if she wasn’t invited to her son’s wedding, they’d never hear the end of it.

“We want to _help._ That’s what’s so fucking annoying about it,” he said finally, as the sun dipped lower into the trees. “She’s on at us all the time about how we never do anything to help out, and the second we _offer our services_ , she tells us to piss off and play.”

“What stuff did you show her?” she asked. Her last big project before OWLs had been the Mary Poppins range, and that had been put on the backburner to get the Skiving Snackboxes ready for mass consumption. As much as she hated to admit it, as someone who took pride in her official title as business partner, she was pretty behind on the product roll out.

“Hardly anything. She shooed us out after Extendable Ears.” He smirked. “Which we then used to listen in on her rant to Dad about what a nuisance we’d make of ourselves.”

“I wonder why she’d think that?” she retorted, flicking grass at him. “You were probably clawing at the door like little dogs.”

He threw his head back, howled mournfully. It resounded all the way around the loch. The cormorants looked over quizzically, wondering what all the fuss was about.

“You could show her the Instant Darkness Powder,” she said after a minute. “From the picture.”

“No-go.” Fred winced. “It stains, see. Being indelible and all. We may have got some of it on the carpet. And the old bird in the portrait is not amused.”

“What can a portrait do?” scoffed Sophie. She imagined some knock-off Fat Lady from the Gryffindor Tower, kicking up a fuss in the moment but instantly pliable once someone brought along a drink from the Last Supper. One look at Fred’s harrowed face told her the portraits in Grimmauld Place might have a little more staying power when it came to grudges. “What I mean is,” she tried, “surely it would be good for escapes? Blinding your opponent? The Order could do with stuff like that.”

Fred perked up a little, said he hadn’t thought of that. As the sun began to set in earnest, they lay back on the grass, watching the clouds streak through with pink and red. Fred vowed to talk to Dumbledore once they had a bit more of a track record.

“And, by the way.”

She could hear the smugness in his voice. She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him.

“It’s very sweet that you hear me talk about getting married and assume it’s to you.”

“I didn’t – you – we were talking about my mum! And then your mum! So I –”

“Calm down, Kincaid.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “I think it’s adorable. But, if you must know, I’m waiting until after seventh year to get you pregnant out of wedlock. Girls,” he said, adopting the stern tone of Minerva McGonagall, “come and go. But my education is forever.”

“This girl _is_ about to go,” she said, trying and failing to be stern as she giggled, “go and leave you stranded in Loch Lamont if you don’t shut up.”

“I love it when you play hard to get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! Obviously this is a festive season like no other, so I hope wherever you are, whatever the regulations are, you're able to have fun and speak with the people you love most. Extra long update just because I love you lot xxxx


	4. Sacred New Beginnings

_When you find the one, you know._ How many times had Sophie heard those words in her life? Her father said it every Valentine’s Day, which always made Louisa roll her eyes as she kissed him. Cho had said it fervently when she first started going out with Terry Boot in second year, and then again when she had her ill-fated crush on Roger Davies. Anna swore that her life could be split into two eras – all that happened before she bought her lucky quill, and the golden years after.

Sophie had never yet heard the words in relation to a place. But staring up at the exterior of Number Ninety-Three, Diagon Alley, on the last day of the summer holidays, a twin either side of her and Zonko bringing up the rear to ‘advise them on policy’ (but mostly for the promise of a free lunch), she knew.

“What was it before?” she asked Zonko, craning her neck up to the vaulted ceilings as they entered. “It’s been boarded up as long as I’ve been coming here.”

“It was the old TerrorTours office before they went bust. Big scandal.” He looked about him, as though the terrible travel agents might be listening even now. Judging it safe to continue, he whispered, “They rented out castles supposedly owned by vampires.”

“In Transylvania?” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a bit kitschy, isn’t it?”  
“Oh, you’d be surprised what people’ll go in for. Some of the Muggle parents especially go mad for it. They want to stay with the real vampires, you see. Chew on garlic, wave a few crucifixes.”

“And were they real vampires?”

“Well, this was the thing,” said Zonko. “They’d all gone on strike that summer – 1990, I think, over sun exposure or some such – so TerrorTours hired a troupe of actors. It wasn’t until a guest spotted one of their reflections in the mirror that they were found out. Ruined after that.”

“I hate to break up a beautiful bonding moment,” called George, now halfway up the stairs to the mezzanine, “but we’re on a pretty tight schedule.”

“We’ve got exactly two hours and forty-five minutes until Mum expects us to be done degnoming,” said Fred, pulling a face at the very thought, “and there’s a lot to do.”

“When did you lads start ordering a poor old codger like me around, eh?”

Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. Zonko was about the spriteliest septuagenarian she’d ever seen; he could run rings around Grandpa Louis. He took the steps two at a time, wondering aloud what sorts of tips and tricks they could include on the staircase – moveable, like the ones at Hogwarts?

“Let me have it, Kincaid.” Fred had hung back to wait for her while George and Zonko discussed the necessary spells involved (it was more complicated than you might think, if you wanted to make sure the staircase didn’t smash right through the walls).

“What?”

“I know you’re making a million lists in your head about everything wrong with this place,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “So I want to hear it. A problem shared is a problem halved.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Fred stopped walking so suddenly that she crashed into his back. “Really?”

“Really.” The shop appeared to her in a golden glow (or maybe it was just the midday sun streaming through the windows). The possibilities flashed through her mind – they could charm mistletoe at Christmas to pinpoint those who needed that little extra push; they could have snowflakes falling from the ceiling that vanished rather than melted, making clean up easier; they could do something with a partridge in a pear tree. She didn’t know _what_ yet, exactly. But that had never been her job. She was the ideas girl. It was up to the twins to take her best bits and make them into a reality.

Fred seemed to doubt that she could be sold so utterly. He bounced on the balls of his feet, waiting for the tell-tale creak of the stair. “You don’t think the wood’s a bit rickety?”

“Nothing a bit of talcum powder won’t fix,” she said. It was impossible spend your formative years in a Scottish castle without picking up remedies for wear and tear of period features.

“And the office space,” he said. “We’ve only got the one room.”

“You and George managed nine months in the same _womb_ ,” she pointed out. “You can make one office work. You’ve never been the greatest observer of personal space.”

“True,” he acknowledged, brushing hairs out of her face. “But the flat upstairs. One bedroom? Twin beds?”

“Ideal for twins, they say.”

“That’s as may be, Kincaid.” Something darkened in his eyes that sent a thrill right through her body. Even all these months after the Yule Ball, when the fire in her belly when he looked at her had been the only thing stopping her from getting hypothermia, he still had a way of making her dizzy. “But _they_ aren’t planning on sneaking their girlfriend up to their flat and having their wicked way with her.”

“Maybe _they_ should focus on the business at hand,” she said, shooting a quick glance over to George and Zonko, puzzling over the paperwork.

“They’re _trying_ ,” Fred wheedled, leaning in to close the gap between them. “But if their girlfriend _will_ insist on being so distracting…”

“What are you plying me with questions for, anyhow?” she asked, now slightly breathless and trying to concentrate with Fred’s lips tracing her jawline. “Don’t you want me to like it?”

“I want you to be _sure_ you like it,” he clarified after a moment, staring down at the main shop floor. It was empty now – it was going to take a proper deep clean; anti-slipping charms on the floor to limit accidents; the mother of all insurance policies. But Sophie knew that his mind was alive with possibilities – he saw what it _could_ be, just like she did. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time here over the next couple years. I want to make sure it’s somewhere you’re willing to visit.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. Imagined the sounds of hundreds of happy customers, stepping into a whole new world. “You think too much, Fred Weasley.”

“You’re definitely the first person who’s ever accused me of that.”

“I like to be original.”

“It’s perfect,” said Fred as they walked back to the Leaky Cauldron in search of Zonko’s promised pub lunch. “Do you reckon we’ve enough time to get it up and running?”

“Certainly,” said Zonko, though he’d declared to be so delirious with hunger not five minutes ago that Sophie didn’t know how much of what he said to take seriously. “What you can do in the meantime is write some ads. Start getting the word out. Inconspicuously, of course.” He knew as well as the twins did what would await them if Molly thought there was too much joke shop, not enough schoolwork going on. They’d have to bury it somewhere clever in the ads page, somewhere she wasn’t likely to look.

George slung an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “Rita Skeeter’s copy editor is on the case.”

She shot him a glare as she turned to Zonko. “I wrote to the _Prophet_ ad people on my way down. They said they’ll run it by the second week of September, latest. And we’ve set up mail-order for the Snackbox as well. We’re hoping it can be a stocking-filler for younger kids, people who can’t get it at Hogwarts.”

“A ripe scheme,” said Zonko approvingly. “I’ll tell my great-niece. Her children would go mad for the stuff.”

He launched into an anecdote about something little Timothy Zonko had done the other day, but Sophie never got beyond the preamble. She’d been distracted by the couple walking behind them, who’d just picked up a _Prophet_ from the newsstand.

“Typical,” spat a male voice, and Sophie heard what sounded like a finger stabbing at the page. “He’s only gone and got off scot-free.”

“You’re _joking,”_ said his friend, who promptly grabbed the paper and read it for herself. “This just sums up the problem with the Ministry, doesn’t it?” An emphatic shake of the _Prophet,_ so the pages rustled. “Dumbledore’s got them all under his thumb. After all these years. You’d think they’d learn.”

“What’s up, Kincaid?” Fred whipped his head round to her, wondering why she hadn’t found the punchline of little Timothy’s escapades (something about a Firebolt and a badger den) quite as funny as he had. She mouthed at him to be quiet; gestured as subtly as she could with an incline of her head behind her.

“Who does he think he is,” the woman was asking, properly riled up now, “running around spreading horror stories like that?”

“Someone who wants attention, that’s who,” said the man grimly, like he was the authority on these things. “The boy’s been in and out of the papers since he could say boo to a goose. Second his name leaves the front page…”

“He’s frightened Stephen half to death, I’ll tell you. Poor boy already didn’t want to go back next week.”

“Then tell him to stay at home.” Fred had stopped dead in front of the couple, perfectly composed. He arched one eyebrow. “If he’s this scared second-hand, he’ll be shitting himself face-to-face with Voldemort.”

The woman’s mouth made a tiny ‘o’ of surprise. Disgust; horror; you name it, she was expressing it. “I beg your pardon?”

“Begging won’t be necessary,” George chimed in. “A simple apology will do.”

The man puffed himself up to his full height – somewhere around Sophie’s shoulder. “Miscarriage of justice, on this scale? The only apology we should be getting is from Amelia Bones herself.”

“Harry got off,” said Fred, jaw clenched.

The man snorted. “On a technicality. One of these days, he’s not going to have Dumbledore running around after him, clearing up his mess. _Then_ we’ll see what he’s made of.”

“Harry hasn’t made a mess of anything,” said George.

“That boy’s been dragging the name of Cedric Diggory through the mud –”

“If _anyone_ is dragging Ced through the mud,” came a shrill voice – Sophie was surprised to discover that it was her own – “then it’s people like _you,_ it’s people who won’t –” “

“That’s enough, now,” said Zonko quietly in her ear, steering her by the elbow around the hot chestnut vendor and away from the _Prophet-_ wielding couple. George looked at the man like he was something particularly repulsive that he’d discovered on the bottom of his shoe and stalked off after Sophie – holding their attention just long enough for Fred to sneak some Puking Pastilles in with their Sugarplum’s Sweetshop merchandise.

“How are you going to let them say things like that about Cedric?” Sophie cried, a fresh hurt welling within her that she hadn’t felt in months. “They don’t know what they’re talking about –”

“ _That,_ my dear, is precisely the point.” Zonko looked at her gravely, twinkle having morphed into a glint of warning. “People like that never do.”

“It’s too much news,” drawled George, scowling at their backs. “Rots the brain.”

“It does if it’s _Prophet,_ these days _,_ ” Zonko agreed, not taking his eyes off Sophie. “And you can shout at such people, and scream at them, and tell them all of the reasons why they’re wrong and you’re right. But it only makes them dig their claws in even more.”

“But surely they must _realise…”_ She trailed off. Realise what? She tried to put herself in the shoes of someone who hadn’t been there that evening in June, who hadn’t heard Fleur Delacour’s shriek cut through the cheers of the crowd. Would she be able to believe what Harry had said? More importantly, would she want to?

“In my experience,” said Zonko, “the truth will out. But truth can be a stubborn old thing. And sometimes it takes rather longer than you would like.”

“As Timothy would testify,” noted Fred. Sophie made a mental note to ask to hear this story about Zonko’s great-great-nephew, his brand-new broom, and a particularly unfriendly family of badgers again, when she was less distracted.

“Well, quite. But for now, just remember that not everyone will be quite as quick to leap to Harry’s defence as you are.”

He didn’t say it in any kind of ominous way. In fact, ten minutes later, with gravy splattered all down his front, waxing lyrical about the early days of the business, the twins piping up with “oh?” and “really?” in all the right places, it was like they’d never run into that couple at all. But something was gnawing away inside Sophie, even as she laughed and flicked peas at Fred. For the whole summer, she’d been living in a kind of bubble. One where everyone thought that Harry was telling the truth, and said as much, loudly. But in just a few days, they would be back in Hogwarts – and something told her the bubble was going to burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, angels!! Here's a little Fred and Sophie (and one of my favourite minor characters, Zonko) to start 2021 off right xx


	5. I've Been Down Since July

The way Annabelle spoke about her parents, you’d think she’d sprung fully formed from her father’s head and then toddled off to support herself. The only thing about her father that she knew for sure was that he was a wizard, who’d picked up her mother some point in the late seventies for a whirlwind twenty-four hours and then vanished without a trace. “Not that I blame him,” she said sometimes, which was more than a little harsh, but Sophie thought she could understand it. Henrietta could be… a lot.

“Don’t crowd her, but make sure she knows you’re there,” she was saying, clutching Jem’s hands in her own, who was too startled to protest. She’d been reading books about grief all summer since they heard the news about Cedric (“the house is like a fucking funeral parlour,” Anna had fumed in her first letter) with the intention of moulding the girls into the best support system they could be. A noble pursuit – if only she didn’t give out entirely contradictory advice.

“When she cries – and she _will_ cry,” she added, widening her eyes at Sophie like it might have slipped her mind, “ask her if she wants to talk about it or if she wants to be distracted. This fabulous Mel Gibson film’s come out you could all watch, though I suppose they don’t let you watch films there, do you?”  
“Mum, we need to _go_.” Anna tried to pull away, but Henrietta clung on.

“And whatever you do,” she said, fixing Sophie with a stern look, “don’t rub it in her face if you have boys over.”

“ _Mum,_ ” whispered Anna fiercely. “Soph’s hardly going to be parading him around, is she?”  
“It’s fine,” Sophie said, smiling anxiously at Henrietta. “I won’t.”

  
A small part of her said that she shouldn’t make any promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. If last year were anything to go by, Fred was her veritable shadow at school, popping into Ravenclaw common room whenever he had a question about WWW or wanted to procrastinate or just wanted to show off that he could solve the riddle that had taken her five minutes that morning. Perhaps she ought to slip off to Gryffindor Tower instead this year. Keep her very-much-not-dead boyfriend out of Cho’s eyeline.

Anna was still glaring at her mother when she gave them all a final hug goodbye. “Have a good year, ducks. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That leaves the field wide open,” muttered Anna, but she leant in to give her a kiss on the cheek anyway.

As they shuttled their things onto the train, Sophie caught snippets of a story Henrietta was telling, more for her own amusement than anything else, about an experience she’d had just like Cho’s when she was young. Except he hadn’t been her boyfriend but a neighbour she’d had a vague sort of crush on; and he hadn’t been murdered by a megalomaniac but had enrolled in the navy; and he wasn’t six feet under at all, but alive and kicking down in Portsmouth – so maybe it hadn’t been that similar, after all.

“There she is,” interjected Jem, on her tallest tiptoes to see over the crowd. Even amongst the dozens of faces, it took Sophie mere seconds to spot her. She could always tell when one of the others entered a room – you spend that much time together and it’s like being tuned into a secret frequency. She felt that familiar crackle now as Cho’s head bobbed through the crowd. Only the crackle seemed fainter somehow. Like it was being absorbed by something – someone – else.

“Alright?”

Marietta Edgecombe smiled at them, arm in arm with Cho. Sophie could only give a sort of startled nod. It wasn’t that they didn’t like Marietta. Well. They didn’t _dislike_ Marietta. She had a propensity to exaggerate, and she wore these fussy little butterfly clips that made her hair clack when she walked, but she was decent enough overall. It was more that they didn’t spend any time with her. There’d been seven girls sorted into Ravenclaw in their first year, so they’d had two dormitories – Cho, Jem, Anna and Sophie in one, Marietta, Roberta and Jennifer in the other. It had been a totally arbitrary split. And if it had been Marietta, not Anna, that Sophie had bunked next to that first day, then maybe they would be best friends instead. Only, it hadn’t been Marietta. So they weren’t.

“Hi, guys.” Cho gave a bright, brittle smile. “What’s up?”

“Er,” said Jem, lost for words for the first time in her life (even as a baby, she’d been pretty vocal). Sophie didn’t blame her. Silence, she’d been prepared for. She had hundreds of anecdotes about the summer at Craig Castle ready to go. Even tears would have been alright, especially with Henrietta on hand to press a nice handkerchief into her hand. But this was like playing spot the difference – this Cho had the same glossy hair, same Prefect badge pinned to her jumper as ever. But there was something darker behind her eyes. And somebody new grabbing hold of her elbow, anchoring her.

They squeezed into a compartment that was already going to be a tight enough fit for four. The fifth year prefects were in charge of supervising the first years – Sophie had seen a distinctly frazzled-looking Ron steamrolling down the corridor, Hermione Granger close behind him – so Marietta and Cho were off-duty. Marietta-and-Cho. She’d never thought of them as much of a pair before.

“Did you guys travel down together, then?” she asked, unable to endure the silence much longer.

Marietta nodded. The butterfly clips nodded with her. Jem tried and failed to suppress a snort of laughter. “Yeah. I’m just outside Sheffield, so Cho’s parents picked me up on the way down.”

“Oh, nice. Nice.”

Conversation eased up eventually. Jem remembered some cousin of Marietta’s who knew her parents, was working with them on an international secondment from the Ministry, and they had a pleasant enough chat about Singapore. They even roped Marietta into a Chocolate Frog Tournament. They had to explain that there was no real skill or technique involved – it was like ‘go fish’, crossed with Top Trumps, with a dash of just chatting shit about whoever was on your card. But it was still _weird._ To be the four of them and to _not_ be the four of them. Sophie watched Cho warily as she put down her Bathilda Bagshots. There was a living, breathing, grieving girl sat opposite them – and Sophie hadn’t the slightest clue what to do with her.

Because her emotions seemed to change at the drop of a hat. She’d drawn back into herself as the Black Lake came into view, no doubt a million Triwizard Tournament memories flashing through her mind at once. And Sophie hadn’t known when they stepped into the Great Hall for the first time, jewel-coloured hangings back in place, whether she’d cry or scream or _what._ But Cho beamed throughout the whole welcome feast. She extolled the house elves’ cooking, and banged on the table whenever a new Ravenclaw was announced. But Sophie couldn’t help but think that if she reached out and touched Cho at that moment, she might shatter. There was something faintly manic behind her eyes, from which no witty repartee about gravy and the goblin from Grantchester could distract.

“Who’s the one in pink?” asked Marietta, pointing with her fork handle. There was a diminutive woman sat to the right of Dumbledore who Sophie had never seen before. She’d seen women _like_ her – the twin set and pearls were classic Women’s Institute – but there was something funny about her hands. Everyone else was brandishing cutlery, gesticulating while telling a story, even – like Hagrid – picking out something from their beard. But hers sat neatly folded on her skirt, looking like they hadn’t moved since she sat down. Yes, it was the stillness that Sophie found the eeriest – like waiting for lightning after a thunder strike, but it never comes.

Until it does. When Dumbledore was halfway through his welcome speech, the woman in pink gave the tiniest cough. And a second one, ten seconds later, when Dumbledore had tried to plough on regardless. Her hands rested on either side of the lectern impossibly delicately – like she might break it if she used her full force – and she stood on her tiptoes to peer over the top. Jem snorted audibly, as if she herself weren’t five foot two.

“Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome,” she said. “And how lovely to see all your bright, happy faces smiling up at me.”

Sophie looked round the table. Anna was arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow, the image of disdain (she practised that look in the mirror sometimes, when she thought no one was watching). Jem had shoved in the last of her pie just before the woman took the stage, and the effects of trying to get through it without choking laughing had puffed out her cheeks like a hamster’s. Marietta seemed bored, swirling the prongs of her fork in the gravy jug. Even Cho’s beam had faltered, watching this strange new force in fuchsia.

“I’m sure we’re all going to be very good friends,” the woman was saying.

“That’s likely,” murmured a familiar voice.

The laughter at the Gryffindor table started as soon as it stopped – McGonagall quelled them with a fierce look. Sophie looked over, already knowing she’d spot Fred’s face grinning at her through the heads. As the woman said something about the Ministry and young people and progression, Fred began honing his impression of her, widening his eyes impossibly and hunching his shoulders to look smaller.

“Let us preserve what must be preserved,” said the woman, with a tiny emphatic press on the lectern, “perfect what can be perfected, and prune practices that ought to be prohibited.”

Fred’s eyes lit up. “Try saying that five times fast,” he mouthed to her. She couldn’t suppress a giggle as he began chanting under his breath, moving his shoulders up and down with every ‘p’.

“Scary pink lady’s mad at you,” whispered Jem, as the woman sank back into her seat. Sophie rolled her eyes, ready to dismiss any such thought. And she would have done, if the woman hadn’t at that very moment turned to Flitwick. Murmured something in his ear, smile unwavering. Gesturing almost imperceptibly to their table with an incline of her head.

“Bloody hell.” Jem took a bracing swig of pumpkin juice. “Perhaps we _won’t_ be such ‘very good friends’, after all.”

“I’m sure she was delighted to see my ‘bright, happy face’,” Sophie retorted. But something inside her wondered. Professor Umbridge – Dumbledore had had to introduce her after she stormed the stage – looked more like she should be attending country fetes, awarding ribbons for the largest vegetables, than running a governmental department. But there was more to people than met the eye.

“Are you guys coming to Gryffindor Tower tonight?” asked Marietta as they filed out of the dining hall. “Katie Bell’s hosting, I think.”

“You can’t _host_ in a _common room_ ,” said Anna, with only a little more vitriol than she intended.

Marietta’s gaze flickered down to her feet. Sophie sighed through her nose. They’d all had enough small talk to last them a lifetime that day, and whatever irritation there already was from seeing Cho so comfortable was only compounded with every new thing Marietta said. The same behaviour from any of the others, Sophie would have brushed off with little more than an eye roll. It was only getting to her because it came from Marietta.

“I am,” she said, forcing herself to be polite.

“I could do with a drink after _that_ speech,” Jem relented, tugging her hair out of her ponytail and finger-combing it. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt that Lee Jordan would be in attendance at this party. Or that Lee got very affectionate when he was drunk.

Anna agreed, too, after a moment of flouncing. She even asked Marietta if she could borrow her eyeshadow palette, which was as close to a peace offering as they were likely to get.

“Well, if you’re all going…”

If she’d been drinking at that moment, she would have done a pretty legendary spit-take. They turned to face Cho, goggling. A second-year smacked into Anna’s chest. She glared at him until he moved along.

Cho let out a bubble of nervous laughter. “What? I’m going to sit in the dorm on my own all night.”

“No. Yeah. Of course not. You should definitely come.” With every step towards the common room, Sophie refined her plan of action for the night. It would now contain a little less beer pong and getting off with Fred in dark corners, and a little more spying on Cho while pretending to do nothing of the sort. “Okay. Fab. This is going to be fun.”

She wasn’t even convincing herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, stream evermore (both the album and the track). I'm in doubt a lot at the moment, so if you need me, you know where to find me. Lots of love and thank you all for reading! xx


	6. I'll Carry You Home Tonight

“Ladies and gentlemen –”

“Esteemed Gryffindors –”

“ _Others –_ ”

“Tonight, we have one question for you.”

Standing atop the Gryffindor common room sofas, Fred and George looked at each other at exactly the same time. Sophie would have bet any money they’d rehearsed this bit upstairs. With the air of campy vaudeville actors, they each pointed an accusatory figure at a member of their rapt audience. Startled, Dean Thomas hiccupped. They flung their arms out like a challenge and cried out: “ _Are you a man or a mouse?”_

“A _man!_ ” shrieked Jem, who was already five shots down, having impressed upon the girls the necessity of catching up when they were getting ready in the dorms. Not only had she caught up with the rest of the partygoers, she’d outstripped most of them. For want of a better word, alcohol made Jem lairy. If there were a fight to pick, she’d pick it. A bet to make, she’d make it. A Skiving Snackbox to taste-test in final stages of product development; she would be damned if she didn’t taste it.

“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” shouted Hermione Granger a few feet away, but a combination of the thundering music, clamour of eager participants and the twins’ utter disinterest in being told what to do being bolstered by drunkenness meant her cries went unheard. She looked up at Ron, hoping to find an ally. “If the volunteers are under the influence when they volunteer, then they haven’t really consented.”

“’Mione,” yelled Harry, wiping Firewhisky from his mouth with the back of his hand, “aren’t _you_ under the influence right now?”

She stiffened. Tried her utmost not to slur her words as she told him, “I’ve had two drinks. I hardly think that counts as ‘under the influence’.”

“You’re more under the influence than Ron,” Harry insisted, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “And he’s been going all night. This is a you-being-a-lightweight thing, nothing more.”

“Shut up about ‘under the influence’.” Ron summoned another Firewhisky to his hand from across the room. When he missed, and it shattered on the wall behind him (“ _Ron!”_ yelped Hermione, hiccupping), he simply tried again. He took a great gulp. “They don’t even sound like _words_ anymore.”

“Granger _cannot_ hold her drink.” Anna watched Hermione swaying on her feet with one raised eyebrow. “Were we ever as bad as that?”

“What are you talking about? Jem’s as bad as that _right now._ ”

“Whadju say ‘bout me?”

“Nothing, bubs. You’re good.”

Jem span back around, satisfied for the moment that no one was impugning her honour. In nine hours’ time, Jem would be leading laps around the Quidditch pitch for the first day of training like she was fresh off a juice cleanse. For now, though, she’d be lucky if she could go one more drink without throwing it all up again. Then again, out of the three house captains here tonight, Jem didn’t seem to be doing too badly. Angelina was displaying a stunning lack of co-ordination as she flailed about with Katie, and Hufflepuff’s Anthony Rickett had been slumped in the corner for the last thirty minutes. Maybe there were bigger lightweights to be found.

“We-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e like to drink with Ronnie, ‘cause Ronnie is our mate! And when we drink with Ronnie, he gets it down in eight! Seven! Six! Five!”

The twins were whooping and hollering in their little brother’s ear as he downed his drink. Each of them held one of his arms aloft, like a championship wrestler, only with more Firewhisky down his shirt.

“That’s really what you want to marry into?” asked Anna, but she was beaming into her gin. “As if you needed any more evidence that it’s a pretty murky gene pool.”

“I’ll show _you_ a murky gene pool,” said Fred nonsensically, lumbering over to where the girls stood with a fuck-off grin on his face. “Are you starting, Armstrong?”

Jem got lairy after two pints, and Anna permitted herself one non-sardonic smile per shot – and Fred Weasley was a loud drunk. Loud _er,_ maybe. His voice carried at the best of times (“I’m a natural baritone, Flitwick’s on at me to join the Frog Choir but I just haven’t the time). And now, with a little Firewhisky in his system, Sophie was pretty sure she was in need of reconstructive ear drum surgery.

Anna clambered on top of a foot stool so she could look Fred right in the eye. “I might be. Our Soph is purest strain Scottish aristocracy –”

“Well –” started Sophie, about to launch into the story of how Grandpa Louis was descended from the Huguenots, but Anna pressed a shaky finger to her lips to shut her up.

“She can’t go around diluting that with just _anyone._ Especially not a man with such an animal of a little brother. Keep him in line, Weasley. There’s prefects about.”

She swung her gin glass in a circle, like a lantern casting light on nefarious prefects lurking in the shadows. Her arm swept past Cho and Marietta, sitting on the stairs to the girls’ dormitories. They were in the exact same position Sophie had last seen them in an hour ago.

“Right,” started Fred, loud enough for half of Hogsmeade to hear. “Except for the fact that the animal in question is a prefect himself, so jot that down.”

Anna reeled. “ _Your_ Ron? A prefect?”  
Fred nodded. “Our Ron. A prefect.”

“Shit. That must make it everyone else in the family.”

“It’s a wonder George and I are as sane as we are,” he quipped. Sophie caught something in his voice – a little bitter, a little slighted – that the combination of booziness and sheer volume hadn’t quite masked. Before she could say anything, he grabbed her by both hands, pulled her into his chest.

“And if _anyone’s_ diluting the gene pool, it’s me,” he said, wrinkling his nose. To Anna, he carried on: “you know this one hasn’t got a single ginger in her family? And she’s _Scottish._ ”

“Must be adopted,” said Anna solemnly.

Fred looked at Sophie with the deepest sympathy. “Shit. Babe. That sucks. Have you got a drink?”  
“Where would I be keeping it?” she asked him, her hands very much still held in his.

He nodded sagely. “We’re gonna get you a drink.”

“Alright, noisy boy.”

He was practically crab-walking by the time he got to the makeshift bar, set up on an upturned box of old Quidditch supplies and manned by Seamus Finnegan, who seemed to be pouring himself another drink for every one he served. Fred passed her a shot glass filled with something creamy, pale gold.

“A toast –”

“You don’t toast with shots –”

“To my beautiful girlfriend –”

“I’ll drink to that –”

“Get your own bird, Seamus –”

“I’m trying –”

He raised his shot glass to Sophie. Smiled at her like he hadn’t a care in the world. It would all have been terribly romantic if he hadn’t already spilled most of it on her shoes. “To the best year with my best girl.”

“Merlin, what a line.”

“You love me anyway.”

She tossed back the shot, kissed him while it still burned in her throat. Thought about how far she’d come since knowing Fred. The Sophie of a year ago would have been scared shitless at the thought of a party in Gryffindor Tower. She’d have imagined daring, nerve and chivalry on steroids – duels breaking out over poor beer pong umpiring; games of ‘say it or shot it’ where no one was too afraid to speak their mind; Seamus drinking all the seventh years under the table. And she wasn’t exactly in her element, even now. But, more and more, she was enjoying going outside her comfort zone. Usually because Fred was the one who pushed her, ready to fall right alongside her.

So. Jem – lairy. Anna – giggly (Oliver Wood still maintained the utterly charming girl he’d met at end-of-season parties after a few drinks bore no relationship to Annabelle Armstrong). Fred – himself, times two. And Sophie –

“I just don’t think she wants to be around us anymore.”

Sophie was a chatty drunk. She’d talk your ear off about anything and everything. It was how Jem had wound up knowing so much about table settings, and the only reason George had ever heard of Blondie. And tonight, it was how Fred had learned all there was to know about the Cho and Marietta situation.

“Are you done?” he checked. He couldn’t see her face, after all – she was sat in between his legs, resting her head on his chest, like a particularly droopy rag doll (it takes it out of you, unburdening your soul). She nodded.

Fred readjusted beneath her. “Well. You might be right.”

Sophie wilted. She’d been hoping that Fred would dismiss her out of hand, say it was just the Firewhisky talking, things with Cho and her were absolutely fine. But they were sitting looking right at the stairs to the girls’ dormitories, where Cho and Marietta were sat, nursing their drinks and looking for all the world like they’d rather be anywhere else. Some people had tried to make conversation with them – Dean Thomas had given it a good go – but for every person who smiled and nodded, there was another who shied away. Who covered their mouth to talk to their friend, but make it obvious just what they were talking about. Sophie sighed, thinking back to that article she’d written for the _Prophet_. It didn’t look like anyone was forgetting about Cedric Diggory round these parts.

“I don’t know what she’s thinking anymore,” she said. “And we haven’t gone a week without speaking since we were eleven years old. I _always_ know what she’s thinking.”

“Sounds a bit scary, if you ask me.”

She frowned – would have turned to look at him if he weren’t so damned comfortable. “What are you talking about, scary?”

“You know. Cho’s very in her own head. She feels things a lot. When she’s in love, it’s like no one else has ever been in love before. When she’s grieving, it’s like no one’s ever grieved.”

This time she did swivel to look at him, narrowing her eyes. “When was the last time _you_ watched your boyfriend die right in front of you?”

“Well, that’s what I’m talking about. When did you? Or Jem. Or Anna. Show me the girl who had a shittier end to OWLs than Cho Chang.”

It still cut right through her. Fleur’s scream through the sounds of the orchestra merrily playing on. Cho wasn’t the only one who had nightmares.

“So she has the worst few days of her life, in front of pretty much everyone she knows. But at least she’s here. And then she’s whisked off home all summer and doesn’t see anyone besides her parents. She doesn’t have an outlet for it the same way.”

“She could have written,” Sophie began. “She _did_ write…”

But it wasn’t the same. There was an unspoken understanding in the summers that they wouldn’t worry if they didn’t hear from each other for days on end, they’d just wait to hear all about it when they got back. So when Cho hadn’t opened up on the page, they hadn’t pushed her. Sophie realised that she’d been expecting Cho to open up the second they saw each other again, that they’d be the only people she wanted to share this with. And that obviously hadn’t been the case.

“And she leaves it for too long,” Fred continued. “And she starts overthinking everything she wants to say to you lot, because she knows you’ll push her on it as soon as she starts. And – well, you didn’t really know Marietta before now, did you?”

“Hardly,” she said, staring at the staircase. It wasn’t that the other Ravenclaw girls weren’t perfectly nice. It’s that they weren’t Jem, Anna or Cho. Sharing a room for five years is an incredibly powerful thing. Sophie hadn’t thought anything could supersede that.

“There you go. So Marietta’s an easier starting point. She doesn’t have expectations of Cho as a mate, in the same way. Cho won’t feel like she’s letting her down as much.” 

“But with us –”

“It’s you guys. You think the world of her. And she’s not ready for that just yet.”

She sat in silence for a bit. Then: “When did you get so wise? Aren’t you supposed to be the funny one?”

“I’m a man of many talents.”  
“Felt like I was talking to Percy for a bit there.”

“You take that back right now,” he said, flicking her on the forearm. “Anyway. To return to more pressing matters…” He nodded at Lee, asleep on Jem’s chest. “That man is just crying out for a comedy moustache.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! i'm alive!! just about!! term from home is NOT the one and i miss my friends unspeakably. hope you're all well xx


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